Across thousands of miles, our family has experienced quite a few road trip adventures. So let me be clear, it takes A LOT for me to deem one experience our “craziest road trip adventure.”
But I *think* our latest drive takes the cake!
First, if you haven’t read my last post about our summer vacation, take a second to catch up. And if you have, then you probably know where I’m going with this post.
The story really starts years ago (don’t panic, I’ll make this part short.) At age 5, Mary Grace decided to donate her hair to an organization that makes wigs for children with cancer.
Almost immediately she began growing her hair out. And when she was 8, Mary Grace once again donated her beautiful hair. At the time I wrote about it in a post: Pantene Beautiful Lengths. **However, I very quickly want to point out that this particular program does not collect hair any more.**
Fast forward to this year and Mary Grace began talking about donating her hair again. At first she wanted to wait until after school got out, and then she decided to wait until the end of the summer.
Then we began doing some of the training sessions for our mission trip with Lighthouse Family Retreat. Knowing that we’d be serving families living with childhood cancer inspired Mary Grace to want to donate her hair prior to the trip.
But she didn’t want to do it before our first beach trip.
So, if you’re keeping track, that left exactly zero days between trips to get a hair cut since we went straight from one to the other. I shared this dilemma with her. She agreed to a hair cut on the last day of our family beach trip. As we made these plans, I had really good intentions of finding a salon in Anna Maria and scheduling a haircut.
But life.
I completely dropped the ball. In fact, I never thought about it again until we stopped for lunch on the first leg of our road trip.
Sitting in a Zaxby’s booth we read through our final Lighthouse training. It included a reminder about some of the symptoms the treatment children may be experiencing. As Brent read the words “hair loss” a lightbulb went off. Mary Grace looked up at me and said “when is my hair cut appointment?”
Whoops.
I promised her that it was no big deal. We’d just stop along the route and get it cut. Brent looked at me like I was crazy, but I honestly didn’t think this was any more crazy than any other road trip adventure. It’s par for the course for me to make bizarre requests of my driver (Brent!)
We got back on the road and I pulled up Yelp on my phone to begin searching for hair salons. I guess I’d overlooked the fact that we were pretty much in the middle of no where.
Who knew Florida had so many backroads through rural (non-hair cutting) communities?
I also had no idea how challenging it would be to make a haircut appointment on a Saturday afternoon. Most places were either closed or booked solid. After making several phone calls, I finally snagged an appointment.
I was really proud of myself until Brent told me it was an hour off of our road trip route.
I went back to the drawing board and eventually deemed Savannah, GA as my best bet. After finding a place and booking an appointment, Brent didn’t even bother complaining that this place was also completely out of the way.
I’m not going to lie. We’ve had better hair cut experiences. The lady who cut Mary Grace’s hair was more than a little…interesting (rude). Quite honestly, I really got the impression she was suspicious of our story. Especially after I told her we didn’t have time for her to blow dry and style Mary Grace’s hair.
And, come to think of it, a desperate search for a place mid road trip to cut my 11-year old’s hair 12 inches does sound a bit bizarre. I really think Brent has come to expect nothing less than a little crazy when he travels with me so I forget how insane we must appear to others.
But in true Mom With A Map road trip adventure fashion…we just went with it and made it happen!
I snapped a quick picture outside, she threw her hat back on, and then we were on our way to the Outer Banks!
This time around we are donating Mary Grace’s hair to an organization called Wigs For Kids. They have an incredible process and, best of all, give the wigs away at no cost to the recipient!
While I won’t recommend our crazy adventure to get the haircut for the donation, I will absolutely recommend Wigs For Kids! If this is something you’d ever consider, be sure to take a look at their website for the guidelines.
What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done on a road trip?
You may also enjoy reading:
My Kids Choose Adventure, Always
A Trip To Daufuskie Island: How To Plan and Prepare
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